On the outskirts south of Hughenden, the already desolate earth looked as if it had been plowed through by massive blades. Vast swaths of soil were torn up, trees and vegetation uprooted, repeatedly trampled underfoot.
Here, the Azure Oceania Battlefield AA Formation—the fifty-thousand-strong America Coalition led by General Bochen—had clashed head-on with swarms of Great Spikes four times in just a single hour.
Driven by source energy maneuvers, a battlefield of iron and blood stretched for nearly ten kilometers.
During the early phase of this battle, Azure's escalating ambush tactic had allowed the America Coalition to leverage local numerical superiority, successfully surrounding and slaying over six hundred Great Spikes.
However, just as General Bochen had anticipated—or rather, hoped—the attention of the Great Spike forces across Oceania was swiftly and completely drawn to this battlefield.
Subsequently, with the battle's location exposed, the number of Great Spikes multiplied rapidly. The Coalition was soon forced to deploy its entire strength onto the field, engaging in head-on clashes against the tightly grouped swarms of Great Spikes...
Such massive head-on collisions never had an interval of more than fifteen minutes between them. In the sky above, swarms of shuttle craft were arriving with increasing frenzy.
Six kilometers away, a new Great Spike swarm was continuously swelling in size.
They had now learned to scout and defend first, waiting until they had assembled sufficient numbers before launching an assault. They had learned to absorb lessons in time, make corrections, and exercise patience.
They had even learned coordinated air-to-ground combat. While charging on the ground, they deliberately sacrificed some of the incoming spacecraft, crashing them directly into human battle formations or behind their lines to disrupt their ranks.
All these signs were more than enough to prove one thing: they were now under prompt, efficient command.
*Perhaps that Daie has already arrived.*
General Bochen did not say the words aloud. Stained from head to toe in the red and blue blood of the Great Spikes, he gripped his blade in silence, watching the shuttle craft descending from the sky like flocks of birds.
A scout sprinted swiftly through the ranks of soldiers gearing up, quickly running to his side and reporting loudly, "Sir! The Great Spike swarm assembling this time is massive. The combat unit ratio is already approaching 30 to 1!"
Still watching the sky, General Bochen nodded after hearing the report.
"Sir, combat units are approaching 25 to 1!" Soon, a second scout arrived, urgently relaying the shifting battlefield data.
General Bochen still issued no orders.
"20 to 1, General... Shouldn't we take the initiative and attack?"
Finally, a third scout tentatively made the plea.
The narrowing of the combat unit ratio stemmed from two factors: first, the Great Spikes' patience this time and the relentless arrival of spacecraft; second, the continuous casualties sustained by the formation's warriors over the previous four charges.
Because the battlefield had been chosen on short notice and the initial decisive clash hastily decided upon, Azure Command had not actually had enough time to make full preparations.
At the same time, due to the vast disparity in battlefield mobility, the arrival speed of Azure reinforcements could not keep pace with the Great Spike swarms arriving via aerial support.
Bochen was waiting.
"Sir! The civilian population has been fully relocated into underground shelters! All squads arriving from nearby areas have completed assembly and deployments, ready to enter the fight!"
The fourth comms soldier to arrive reported with a firm, resolute salute.
"Sir! Allied communication: twenty thousand warriors from the Xiongzhanli RA Formation are about to reach the battlefield! Every single one of them fought in the Battle of Winter Palace Square!"
The fifth comms soldier spoke with red-rimmed eyes, his voice trembling with excitement.
Soldiers bringing updates arrived and departed. The staff officers around Bochen waited with tense, focused breath for the general to issue their next orders.
They could wait no longer. If this trend continued and the combat unit ratio reached or approached 10 to 1, everything would be too late.
In a head-on collision at that extreme ratio, human battle formations were almost guaranteed to collapse.
Moreover, that projected limit had been calculated under the premise that Azure's Oceania forces were entirely equipped with Tenth-Generation devices.
This was the overall disparity in combat strength between humans and Great Spikes—one that could not be bridged by willpower, determination, or sheer courage alone.
*Schwing.*
At last, General Bochen sheathed the warblade behind his shoulder and turned around with his head lowered.
Taking a towel handed to him by a staff officer, he pressed it against his face and wiped hard. Then, while wiping the blood from his hands, he spoke:
"Prepare to execute Strategy Three."
"...Yes, sir!" All the staff officers present snapped to attention with excitement, saluted, and acknowledged the order.
As they scattered toward the battle lines to coordinate the tactic, General Bochen handed the grimy towel to an orderly soldier and said, "From now on, none of you need to follow me." With that, he walked alone into a large military tent.
***
"They're coming."
Within the massive formation, someone looked down at the ground beneath their feet and murmured seemingly calmly, though their voice was hoarse from a dry throat.
*Boom! Boom!* The ground began to vibrate, turning from slight tremors into violent shaking.
A mass charge of over three thousand Great Spikes—approaching that critical limit ratio.
Faint roars and hisses drifted over, growing clearer and clearer. Amid the drifting dust and fog in the distance, a dark, dense swarm of Great Spikes gradually emerged into the sight of the Azure warriors.
At the same time, dozens of shuttle craft in the sky began slowly blanketing the airspace above.
"Ready!"
*Schwing—*
*Clang-hum...*
Across the imposing battle array, over forty thousand warriors drew their blades in unison.
Then—*Boom!* Blue light flickered in vast sheets as over forty thousand tenth-generation devices roared to life with surging power.
On such a battlefield, one could never receive a charge from a static formation. One could only meet a charge with a countercharge, with no thought of flanking maneuvers. Any detour meant exposing a flank and losing the bulk of one's momentum.
Every warrior understood this. It was what they had been taught from the start.
Only this time, the distance and timing for initiating the countercharge seemed somewhat earlier than the previous four.
"Pay no mind to the spacecraft in the sky."
"Prepare for flanking maneuvers..."
"Remember: trust your comrades."
As the Great Spike swarm closed in, Commander Mills, directing the battlefield in General Bochen's stead, repeated the instructions that the staff officers had already passed down to every squad.
Then, "Get ready..." *Tick, tock.* "Azure, America Coalition! Fifth mass charge—attack!"
Finally, the command to kill arrived.
*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—*
The colossal Azure formation surged forward head-on.
Along a straight line, the distance between the human army and the Great Spikes shrank continuously.
Between the two battle lines, the earth trembled.
This was ground that had already been fought over repeatedly...
Suddenly—*Boom! Boom!*
Explosions tore through the earth from below.
Dynamite.
Tens of thousands of tons of explosives buried underground long beforehand were finally detonated at that very moment.
The detonations ripped open the ground right between the two lines, directly beneath the Great Spikes' side.
Countless chunks of dirt and stone flew skyward as a gigantic crater was blasted open. A towering wall of dense smoke and dust billowed into the air, rising straight toward the heavens.
*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!* At that instant, the more than forty thousand America Coalition warriors split to both sides in mid-charge, executing a flanking maneuver.
Dynamite alone could not kill Great Spikes, of course—it could barely even injure them.
They tumbled or willingly charged into the colossal crater.
Naturally, the fall would not kill them or trap them either.
The surging horde of Great Spikes was hardly slowed at all. Swarming across the massive crater toward the other side, they kicked off the ground or stepped on debris mid-sprint, leaping into the air wave after wave.
*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...*
The heads of the first wave of leaping Great Spikes rapidly cleared the rim of the pit...
Yet what met their eyes...
Was not the opposing formation they had just been charging toward.
Instead, it was a sky-blotting forest of massive javelins.
Twenty thousand Xiongzhanli warriors.
Five hundred colossal javelins—the very ones that had appeared at Winter Palace Square—pierced in dense, layered volleys across the airspace above the crater.
These people, these giant javelins, had not long ago skewered and shattered a Red Shoulder on another battlefield.
*...Squelch!* It was impossible to tell which one was struck first.
In that initial wave, at least fifty Great Spikes were skewered midair by the colossal javelins, left dangling upon the massive spears.
Chapter 674